What Goes Around Comes Around

A friend at church surprised me recently with the gift of several books and publications from his library at home. Among them were two issues of The Covenant Home Altar, one of which, dating from 1976, carried a meditation of my own for this time of year. Based on Hebrews 2:14-16, it read as follows:

"The incredible wonder of the incarnation is that God's concern is not primarily for himself or his rights but for each of us. His will was to identify in Jesus Christ with us 'in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of his people.'

"If, understanding and accepting this, we might begin more effectively to reflect the same Spirit in our lives, no doubt others would come to know him too.

"Let us remember that as Christians. We are to be like our human brethren 'in every respect,' i.e., we are to experience with them and feel with them the terrible trauma of their lost and hopeless condition, understanding them in the light of God's love and concern even when they are not able to understand themselves.

Why can he help to the uttermost? Because he himself has suffered and been tempted. And because he never grows weary of seeking the lost he came to save.

"Dear Father, thank you for your identifying love. Help me, by your Spirit, to identify with others. Amen."

Thus do the words I wrote 34 years ago now return to address me. I thank God for their reminder that even as his Son laid aside his glory for me, he now calls me to lay aside my privileges for the sake of others.